“Predators and Pawns”

*Rowan*

I never trusted the silence after sunrise.

It was the hour when most predators were either retreating or slipping into offices in suits and polished shoes, pretending to be anything but what they were.

Those people were the ones everyone less suspected, yet I learned to spot them, and I knew their real faces; the faces they hid at my club and all the other night places the city held. If only they were honest with themselves.

I sat at the edge of the long concrete table in my private operations suite, high above the city. I liked mornings. I liked control. And lately, both had started slipping through my fingers in places I didn’t expect.

Rafe entered without knocking. His movements were silent, precise, he didn’t waste time with pleasantries. That’s why he was still breathing.

“They’re sniffing,” he said simply.

I didn’t look up from the screen. “Where?”

“South docks. Warehouse 17. Two plainclothes. No warrant, no badges. Just asking around.”

I turned the tablet slightly, scrolling through the shipping logs we kept cleaner than most banks. Just as he pointed out, two officers were asking questions and roaming the area, their faces clear in the footage.

“They’re baiting,” I muttered. “Nothing illegal moves through 17.”

“Which means they either don’t know what they’re looking for…” Rafe trailed off.

“Or they know exactly what they’re looking for.” I finished it for him.

There was a long pause, a much needed one. I could get rid of them easily or just ignore them, but I only ignored insignificant people, these ones were annoying cockroaches.

“You want them watched?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I want to know who sent them.”

Picking up my keys, I headed to the door and Rafe followed me closely. Santiago and Momo, my two bouncers, were just outside puffing a smoke. As soon as they saw me they straightened up.

“Sir!” both said in unison.

“Want us to go with you boss?” Momo said and Santiago nodded.

“I will be fine, you two keep an eye on the place while we are gone, after we get back, I will have a mission for you two,” I said as I got up in the car and Rafe took the wheel.

Twenty minutes later, we were meeting Detective Nolan, in the back of a former meat-packing facility, now stripped down to bare walls and concrete. It was the location we chose for our regular, and irregular meetings.

He arrived late, as expected, dressed like a man who thought business casual could mask corruption.

He sat across from me, arms spread wide like this was his idea of diplomacy.

“Relax,” he said. “Nobody’s kicking in your doors. It’s not that kind of heat.”

“It never is,” I replied. “Until it is.”

He gave a crooked smile, the kind that always came before someone asked for something.

“There’s chatter,” he said. “You’re good at staying clean, Hill. But you’ve got ghosts around your name. Dead men, closed cases, missing people. Somebody new gets assigned to a task force and suddenly they want to play hero.”

I stared at him until he stopped talking.

“And what do they want?” I asked.

“A sign. A gesture of… good faith.” He shrugged. “You know how it works.”

I slid the envelope across the table.

Inside were photos, dates, transaction records, evidence that would point some overeager badge toward someone else. Someone I didn’t need anymore.

Nolan hesitated. “This is clean?”

“Cleaner than me,” I said. “And twice as guilty.”

He pocketed it slowly. “You always have a backup plan.”

“That’s why I’m still here.”

He stood. “I’ll pass the message along. But Rowan…” His eyes narrowed slightly. “You keep growing the way you are… it won’t just be locals knocking next time.”

I didn’t answer, he left with the envelope, and the room was quiet again.

There was a lot to think about, and after I made sure he was gone, I went out through the side entrance and got into the car. Rafe led us fast back to my favorite hanging spot; the office.

Once we were back, I gave Momo and Santiago the directions to go to warehouse 16 and start pretending to guard something. That was only a decoy, but I wanted to play with the players.

I went back to my office, and sat down at my desk, opening my laptop to survey the cameras. Rafe said nothing as he entered and handed me a new tablet.

“Lance is still sniffing around the girl,” he said.

I took the device, opened the feed. It was paused on the grainy still of Harper in the club, the moment she raised her hand and struck Lance’s wrist aside without flinching.

That calm.

That stillness.

“She doesn’t scare easily,” I said.

“No,” Rafe agreed. “Neither do the feds.”

I growled. “They should.” I closed the tablet. Not because I was done watching, but because I didn’t need to look again to remember the shape of her eyes.

Harper Blue.

Quiet. Distant. Unimpressed. And still the most dangerous variable I’d touched in a long time.